Well I have been wanting a long gyre tank for a while. I am at school for some time before I will get a chance to build this. Until then I have google sketchup.

Theme:
I imagine it as the edge of an atoll bio-tope. With the quieter sand lagoon on one end divided in the middle by stony corals and finally dropping off into the darker and deeper ocean on the end of the tank.
Inspiration

Design considerations:
Gyre tank, high flow rates, Horizontal gyre. Goal of 15-20cm/s.
Low wattage of lights, T5HO and possibly LED.
Long, narrow, shallow to reduce lighting requirements and compliment gyre flow.
Flow reference.

Species:
Stichodactyla haddoni
Green slimer - Acropora sp.
Grape monti cap - Montipora capricornis

Amphiprion clarkii - pair
Chromis viridis 5-6 hoping to have a small school

Halophila seagrass in main display.
Caulerpa to disguise gyre.
Chaetomorpha refugium.
Algae turf.

Not quite the mono-species tank Steven envisioned but I think his ideas come through.

Layout:
Now I cant decide how to go with this, either with a 55g tank with the bottom 9 inches blocked from view to create the gyre effect and a display of 48x12x12. Or to go with a 6 foot tank. I would like to stick with the 12x12 cross section but this may require custom tank or modification or an existing tank. Otherwise go with 72x18x18 which would drastically increase lighting requirements.

The left third of the tank would consist of MMLR(example) covering the sides of the walls and loosely stacked pieces of LR to cover the entrance to the left gyre yet allow flow through it, some caulerpa may be placed on these rocks to disguise the gyre further. The sand bed will extend from this region and house the halophila as well as haddoni. The sand bed will be "floating" off the true bottom and plan for it to be ~2" deep with some rocks sunken into it.

The right side of the sand bed will hold more LR with green slimer attached, to the top, growing upwards, as well as monti cap attaching to the edge of the false bottom and descending into the deeper regions of the tank.

Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment

Equipment:
Lighting, very low...considering either two T5HO bulbs or one actinic as well as DIY LEDs. Ideally I would put the DIY LEDs with AS duo bulbs into a scrap PC fixture.
Aquascience DUO
XP-G-I am hoping they will be selling MC-G by the time this build comes aroud.

Flow. EDIT: I was considering a MP40w because I love it. But I have been following the 89$ controller thread as well as the DIY koralia controller thread and the DIY vortech threads. All of these threads have been making progress and I hope to have a solution that can run two propeller pumps on wave making mode in alternating directions every 6 hours. Two Koralia 8s would be amazing.
Reefbuddy-89$ controller
DIY controllable Koralia
PVC overflow, Coast to coast(calfo). I would probably only have it run about half the tank length. Eheim 1250/1260 return.

Minimal skimming, possibly only a couple hours a day to keep from overskimming. Tank will be very lightly stocked as it is. Would love an I-tech but want to keep things cheap.

Cooling, fan only with temperature control. I plan to run tank completely covered to reduce evaporation.

Sump is pictured as two tanks, I hate that. Ill find a way to fit it in one tank. RDSB, Cheato and turf filter will all be taken advantage of.
Turf filter
RDSB

Other:
DIY stand. Seems if I go with 2x6 I wont need the center brace, very encoraging.
Stand instructions

Setup and maintenance:
Time will be taken to allow the macro and microalgae to establish before LR is added or any inhabitants. I am hoping to have very minimal ammonia in the setup of the tank due to so many nitrogen consumers.
Trying to keep this tank simple, low stocking, to reduce maintenance and cost. Low numbers of species should keep maintaining their health simple. I plan to take advantage of my grass bed and macroalgae and feed this tank heavily.

Thanks to Calvin for inspiration, I have used some of Chris ward's, Basser1 and cartman5578's pictures from RC in my layouts.

pretty cool, idea well thought out, though im not sure if this project will be cheap, so really might as well save some money and get the right eqiupment for it. probably wont be a while till its up but when you get start include pictures.

Cheap, probably not. I really want to avoid too much equipment, dont mind the money so much. Trying to avoid chillers, ca reactors, dosing pumps, ATO etc. I would love LED lighting for it, hoping cost will come down by then.

What would you add?

I don't really have any great suggestions or criticisms to add, but just wanted to say that I love the concept here and how well thought-out this is.
Can't wait to see what you do with it.

I agree with Weetie, that looks like a great setup Id love to have that.

Don't hold your breath on that one. LED prices will not change drasticly in the next six months to two years. I wish they would, but they won't. The only area that savings will show up is in new drivers comming to market that will allow us to run more LEDs on cheaper drivers. The LEDs are still going to be the majority of the array cost.

We can talk about this in more detail if you are interested.

Sweet tank idea btw.

well could be >2 years before I get to work on this. Sure hope not but possible. Please post what you know that we dont, I am sure we are all waiting to hear it. I guess I am secretly hoping the LED prices come down in a similar manner that CPU or memory technology has advanced.

There are some new technologies that have been demonstrated in the lab that promise to lower costs on LEDs and raise efficiencies, but it could take years for that to happen. Comparing to the PC memory biz is difficult. They have hundreds of times more volume distributed per year than high power LEDs. They are still a relatively small market.

There are also some new driver options that are becoming available that is helping to reduce the costs a little. Much of this discussion has been going on in the lighting forum for the last few months. One that we are hoping will yield good results is the ELN series of driver from Meanwell. Biggest issue with them right now is that the 1-5 unit price is not very cost effective, but once you get past that quantity, the price gets much more attractive. It's a line driver too, so you don't have to buy DC power supplies for it.

Bump for some changes. Plan to try and add a price list here some time soon.